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Canada Sings recap: WestJet vs. the Ontario Provincial Police

WestJet’s Cabin Pressure faces off against OPP Project Glee on Season 2 premiere of Canada Sings

Cabin Pressure, WestJet's glee club, performed on the May 15 premiere of Canada Sings Season 2. (SHAW MEDIA PHOTO)

By Debra YeoToronto Star

Wed., May 16, 2012

The judges on Canada Sings may just have the toughest job of any reality TV panel.

Not only are they passing judgment on amateur singers and dancers, as opposed to people who’ve committed to showbiz careers, they’re denying those people dollars for charities to which they’re passionately committed.

Case in point: the Season 2 premiere, in which Westjet’s Cabin Pressure competed for a donation to the Alberta Children’s Hospital against OPP Project Glee, raising funds for the Dave Mounsey Memorial Fund, which honours fallen emergency services and military personnel, and buys defibrillators.

How would you like to be the one to tell a bunch of cops they can’t have the $25,000 prize for a charity that honours a colleague killed on duty?

Yeah, thought so.

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WestJet’s Calgary-based team was first up on the hourlong show, in which workplaces form glee clubs to raise funds for charity. The teams spend a week learning song and dance routines with a vocal coach and choreographer, then perform the routines in front of a studio audience in Toronto.

Two of WestJet’s performers had personal experience with the Alberta Children’s Hospital. In-flight instructor Jennie Clarke had two sons born with torticollis who needed physiotherapy to develop their neck muscles. And the hospital saved the life of communications coordinator Jesse McNeil’s 3-day-old daughter, who was born without a thyroid.

Jesse seemed to have the toughest time during rehearsals with vocal coach Scott Henderson and choreographer Kelly Konno, and was ready to quit until her daughter talked her out of it.

It was no picnic for Scott and Kelly, either, who had to get 18 people moving and sounding as good as possible on a 1950s and ’60s medley.

The team was better than good when they took the stage to perform “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “Sh-boom” and “Rip It Up.”

Jennie and flight attendant Dan Blenkin, in particular, were excellent on the lead vocals; the harmonies were great; the 1950s costumes and diner set were fantastic; the energy was superb. It was one of the most enjoyable performances I’ve seen in both seasons.

“It was like ‘holy sockhop.’ It was amazing,” said new judge Laurieann Gibson, who has choreographed for the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and many more.

“You guys really gave me some classic steps. Each and every one of you worked to get in the same rhythm. You danced beautifully, you performed wonderfully.”

Both singer Jann Arden and rapper/home improvement guru Rob Van Winkle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, gave a special shoutout to Jesse.

“I can’t dance a lick,” said Arden. “Jesse, for God’s sake, don’t worry. You did more than I could do in 30 years.

“I thought this was the best use of ensemble singing that we’ve seen in both seasons,” Arden added.

Next up was OPP Project Glee, a nine-person team of police officers, trainers and a 911 dispatcher from the Orillia detachment.

Their charity, the Dave Mounsey Memorial Fund, was founded in honour of a colleague who was killed in a car crash responding to a 911 call.

To add to the pressure, Mounsey’s mother, Shirley Stamway, was in the audience for the performance, along with Patrick Armstrong, Dave’s best friend and the officer who was first on the scene after the crash.

Vocal coach Sharron Matthews and choreographer Christian Vincent came up with a really challenging concept: to have the team portray Dave and his guardian angel reaching out to loved ones and the loved ones not sensing their presence until it’s time for Dave to move on to the afterlife.

That pressure meant tempers got a little raw during rehearsals. Vincent broke into tears at one point, explaining, “I’m on you guys because . . . I want the audience to understand.”

It was obvious the team put their hearts into the performance and there was no question it was emotionally touching, but it lacked the energy, and the vocal and dance prowess of the WestJet act.

Det.-Const. Valerie Burns had the OPP’s best singing voice on the mashup of Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” U2’s “With or Without You” and David Guetta’s “Without You.”

When it was over, Matthews was crying, Gibson was crying, Mrs. Stamway was crying, probably plenty of other people in the audience.

Arden called the routine perfect. “The song choices were absolutely outstanding and touching . . . It was filled with excitement . . . That liberation and the soaring up to heaven, you really felt that . . . What a beautiful tribute to your friend.”

Gibson praised the emotion in the performance, but she added, “It is very important when you work with a collective unit and you are one accord through the dance or through the common emotion that you’re all there together and so, for me, there were moments in the piece where I felt like even the movement, the story, the honesty and being in the moment was lost at certain times.”

The audience booed and Van Winkle disagreed, saying he could see the passion “in every bit of you guys tonight.”

But then it was time to decide who got the $25,000 charitable donation, which is more than double the amount from last season.

In another new twist this year, we get to listen in on the judges’ deliberations.

“At the end of the day, let’s erase everything except the performance,” Van Winkle told the other two.

The discussion focused on the emotionalism of the OPP performance vs. the technical skill of WestJet’s.

“The emotional connection to the story equals the level of difficulty in Kelly’s number, however I don’t think they achieved that dance element,” said Gibson. “They’re police officers, you have to give them a break, they have to be serious . . . they’re kind of trained to be that,” said Van Winkle.

“You have to admit it was very daring and very brave of them to step out and do that kind of a performance,” added Arden.

When all was said and done, the judges gave the $25,000 to WestJet’s charity, but WestJet stepped up with a $10,000 donation to the Dave Mounsey Memorial Fund, thanks to the airline’s CEO.

Added to the $5,000 consolation prize from Canada Sings, that meant a nice payoff for the OPP and a relatively happy ending to the show.

Next week, the Royal Canadian Air Force takes on the Peel Children’s Aid Society and you can look for the recap here at thestar.com/tvreviews.

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